Create and Edit Images for Free with Artweaver (Windows)

If Paint.NET is the freeware answer to Photoshop and Creative Docs .NET to Illustrator, then Artweaver might just be the freeware answer to Corel Draw. It bills itself as a "program to simulate natural brush tools," meaning it's designed as much for creating images as it is for manipulating them.

In addition to an assortment of "digital brushes" including chalks, charcoals, and pencils, Artweaver offers the usual array of image-editing tools: crop, gradient-fill, transparency, layers, and so on. It also supports (and, in fact, recommends) tablet PCs for a more realistic pen-on-paper feel. (As real as a plastic stylus on an electronic screen can feel, anyway.)

Artweaver requires Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, but has fairly basic system requirements: a Pentium processor, 128MB of RAM, and 30MB of storage. That's pretty impressive for a program that offers this much painting and editing power. Definitely worth a look. [via CyberNet]